Do Elite Basketball Players Maintain Peak External Demands throughout the Entire Game?

Consideration of workload intensity and peak demands across different periods of basketball games contributes to understanding the external physical requirements of elite basketball players. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the average intensity and peak demands encountered by players throughout game quarters. PlayerLoad per minute and PlayerLoad at three different time samples (30 s, 1 min, and 3 min) were used as workload metrics. A total of 14 professional elite male basketball players were monitored during 30 official games to investigate this. A linear mixed model and Cohen’s d were employed to identify significant differences and quantify the effect sizes among game quarters. The results showed a significant, moderate effect in PlayerLoad per minute between Q1 vs. Q4, and a small effect between Q2 and Q3 vs. Q4. Furthermore, a small to moderate decline was observed in external peak values for PlayerLoad across game quarters. Specifically,, a significant decrease was found for the 3 min time window between Q1 and other quarters. The findings from the present study suggest that professional basketball players tend to experience fatigue or reduced physical output as the game progresses.